Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, 4 October 1810: 'I have just received a letter from [John] Galt with a Candiot poem which ... appears to be damned nonsense ... Galt also writes something not very intelligible about a "Spartan state paper" ... '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Manuscript: Sheet
Byron to John Galt, 8 June 1813: 'I have to thank you for a most agreeable present [apparently a copy of his Letters from the Levant] ... I wish you had given us more ... no one has yet treated the subject in so pleasing a manner. - If there is any page where your readers may be inclined to think you have said too much - it will probably be that in which you have honoured me with a notice far too favourable ... I know nothing more attractive in poetry than your description of the Romaika [dance] ... thank you for a volume on Greece - which has not yet been equalled - & will with difficulty be surpassed.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron Print: Book
14/1/1827 ? 'I read "Galt?s Life of Wolsey" with interest. To be thankful, and rather better, could only read a psalm to the servants.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Amelia Opie Print: Book
'The novels of John Galt were always much to my taste. I fancy I have read every book that came from his pen, including his "Lives of the players", and once every year I peruse "Sir Andrew Wyllie"; also that most realistic production, the "Annals of the Parish": both books undeserving of the neglect which has befallen them.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Glass Bertram Print: Book
'The novels of John Galt were always much to my taste. I fancy I have read every book that came from his pen, including his "Lives of players", and once every year I peruse "Sir Andrew Wyllie"; also that most realistic production, the "Annals of the Parish": both books undeserving of the neglect which has befallen them.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Glass Bertram Print: Book
'The novels of John Galt were always much to my taste. I fancy I have read every book that came from his pen, including his "Lives of players", and once every year I peruse "Sir Andrew Wyllie"; also that most realistic production, the "Annals of the Parish": both books undeserving of the neglect which has befallen them.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Glass Bertram Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
'Read "Laurie Todd" by Galt. It is excellent; no surprising events, or very striking characters, but the humorous and entertaining parts of common life, brought forward in a tenour of probable circumstances. Read Raffles's Life. A virtuous, active, high-minded man; placed at last where he ought to be: a round man, in a round hole'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'The short and simple annals of the poor, which have lately poured in such profusion from the Scottish press, I thought at first exquisitely beautiful and pathetic, and the tone of piety which pervaded them, at once appeared as a national characteristic, and was sublime in its simplicity. But after reading a succession of them I wearied of the beauty, the pathos, and even the piety, for they were brought forward too often, and betrayed too much of stage trick.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Eleanor Anne Porden Print: Book
'I do not rank this Maga very high but would like much to know who this new village poet is this juvenile Crab Coleridge's letter is great stuff but correspondence of the Pringles continues to be excellent'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Serial / periodical
'I have read the "Parish Register" with great attention. It is rather lifeless and wants character and point but I like it for its simplicity and extraordinary resemblance to truth in my estimation the first properties that any work of the same stamp can possess. It will not however sell extensively for the matter was much better calculated for a periodical work. If it had appeared piecemeal among other things it would have taken very well but as the old proverb runs "ower muckle o' ae' thing's gude for naething".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Book
'I think very highly of both the books you have sent me but far most highly of Lights and Shadows in which there is a great deal of very powerful effect purity of sentiment and fine writing but with very little of real nature as it exists in the walks of Scottish life The feelings and language of the author are those of Romance Still it is a fine and beautiful work.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Book
'Mrs Scott (here) is as thorough-paced a lover of those books [The Waverley Novels] as either of us. I have been looking over the Ayrshire Legatees, which I do not like at all. Mme de Stael's "Dix Annees d'Exil" is here, but a lord of the creation has got possession of it and reads so slowly that I have no chance of it while I stay'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Louisa, Lady Stuart Print: Book
'Pray, if you love laughing, read "the [italics] Entail [end italics] or the Lairds of Grippy". It is admirable for that purpose, tho' far more broadly Scotch than I can understand; but besides the patois, the old lady has a slip-slop of her own quite incomparable - [italics] concos montes [end italics] for [italics] compos mentis [end italics], etc. - and the author [Galt] this time is so wise as to keep quite out of good company, avoid lords and ladies, and only describe the people he has seen'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Louisa, Lady Stuart Print: Book
Thursday, 23 February 1826:
'Read a little volume called the OMEN very well written, deep and powerfull language [...] it is
[John Gibson] Lockhart or I am strangely deceived -- it is passd for Wilson's though, but
Wilson has more of the falsetto of assumed sentiment, less of the depth of gloomy and
powerful feeling.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Sunday, 19 July 1829:
'I read the Spae-wife of Galt. There is something good in it and the language is occasionally very forcible but he has made his story difficult to understand by adopting a region of history little known and having many heroes of the same name whom it is not easy to keep separate in his memory. Some of the traits of the Spaewife who conceits herself to be a Changeling or Ta'en away is very good indeed. His highland Chief is a kind of Caliban and speaks like Caliban a jargon never spoken on earth but full of effect for all that.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Sunday, 11 July 1830:
'I have begun Lawrie Todd which ought considering the author's indisputed talents to have been better. He might have laid [James Fenimore] Cowper aboard but he follows far behind. No wonder. Galt, poor fellow, was in the King's Bench when he wrote it; no whetter of genius is necessity though said to be the mother of invention.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book